Chapter 9
Grant attempted to coerce her signature.
Sloane encouraged pressure and remained present.
The documents contained false claims.
Her phone had recorded part of the incident.
The house camera recorded the rest.
Facts did what emotion could not.
Facts walked into court.
Facts did not shake.
When the nurse left, Eve unhooked the blanket from around her hands.
“Now,” she said.
Charles ended his call.
“Evelyn—”
“No.” Eve’s voice was calm enough to make Daniel look up. “You taught me not to ask the wrong question twice. So I’m asking once. Why does Sloane Mercer know you?”
Daniel set down the tablet.
Charles remained by the window.
Outside, the Phoenix sky was burning orange.
He looked older in that light.
Not weak.
Never weak.
But older.
“Sloane Mercer is not her real name,” he said.
Eve’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
Daniel looked away.
So he already knew.
Of course he did.
“Her legal name is Sloane Varrick,” Charles said. “Her mother was Lydia Varrick.”
The name meant nothing to Eve.
But her father said it like it was a loaded gun on a table.
“Should that mean something?”
Charles turned.
“Lydia worked for Hartwell Global twenty-seven years ago.”
Eve waited.
“She was in compliance.”
The monitor kept beating.
Thump-thump-thump.
“Did you have an affair with her?” Eve asked.
Charles flinched.
The great Charles Hartwell flinched.
The sixth mini-payoff.
Not yes.
Not no.
Worse.
History.
“No,” he said. “But she told people I did.”
Eve’s stomach went cold.
“People?”
“Board members. Reporters. Your mother.”
“My mother?”
The room sharpened.
Her mother had been dead for fifteen years, but the word still opened a door Eve kept locked.
Caroline Hartwell.
Pearls.
Lavender soap.
A laugh that warmed the backseat of a car.
A funeral in rain.
Charles took one step closer.
“Lydia claimed I was the father of her child.”
Eve looked toward the door.
Toward the hallway.
Toward the world where Sloane Mercer had worn her bracelet and smiled while Grant raised a golf club.
“Sloane.”
Charles nodded once.
“She is not my daughter.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“DNA test. Court sealed it.”
Eve absorbed that.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Because the story was too neat, and neat stories usually hid ugly rooms.
“If it was proven,” she said, “why would Sloane hate me?”
Charles looked at Daniel.
Daniel’s silence gave the answer before Charles did.
“Because Lydia lost everything afterward,” Charles said. “Her job. Her reputation. Custody for a while. She blamed me. She raised Sloane to believe Hartwell stole the life she deserved.”
Eve laughed once.
It came out dry.
“So Sloane targeted my husband?”
“We believe she approached Grant during the Phoenix expansion negotiations two years ago.”
Eve turned her head slowly.
“Two years ago?”
Grant had introduced Sloane to Eve fifteen months ago.
May you like
A consultant.
An image strategist.
